


The Salamander

by baranduin



Series: No Night Is Too Long [1]
Category: No Night is Too Long (2002)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-14
Updated: 2010-01-14
Packaged: 2017-10-06 06:26:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/50676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/baranduin/pseuds/baranduin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A what if. A continuation of "Five Things That Never Happened to Tim and Ivo, #1: Chechin Island". This time, Ivo's POV.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Salamander

**Author's Note:**

> #001--Beginnings from the fanfic100 challenge.

_"En ma Fin gît mon Commencement..."_

This phrase, from some half-remembered French lesson from school, keeps running through my head. In my end is my beginning. I don't remember who said it. I leave those sorts of useless bits of knowledge to Tim. No doubt he could enlighten me at great length.

My head hurts. Well, there's an understatement if ever there was one, but it will suffice. It hurts as if someone split it open with a treek trunk.

Ah. Someone did. Or rather, someone punched me in the jaw hard enough to send me backwards with such force that I was knocked out when my head collided with the tree trunk.

He wanted to come with me to my cabin and, no doubt, nurse me back to health, but I told him no. I haven't decided whether or not I believe his pleas that he never meant to hurt me badly, that he had not turned tail to leave me to my mortal fate. On balance, I think perhaps I do believe him, even though when I opened my eyes the first thing I saw was the back of him as he fled the crime scene. But he's such a terrible liar. As a matter of fact, he's such a terrible liar that I know he loves me again though he hasn't said the words. I have seen it in his eyes. He can't take his eyes from me, and they wear that pathetic expression you see on a kicked dog who still cannot bear to be parted from his worthless master.

Not that this particular analogy fits completely for I am more than worthy. It is Tim who is not and never has been, though I still have hopes of him.

Oh, yes, I have hopes of him, for regardless of what I told him after we boarded the Favonia an hour or so ago, that he was free of me and my unwelcome attentions, of course I have come to my senses.

And he and I will begin again. Some day we shall joke about the events on Chechin Island. Perhaps some day I will tell him about the phrase 'in my end is my beginning', how it kept running through my mind as I lay in my dank bunk with my head pounding.

In my end is my beginning.

I cannot decide. Was the ending at the island or was it when I set him free momentarily? I cannot decide. I suspect it is the latter.

Shall I ever tell Tim again that I love him? Perhaps you might think the more pertinent question would be whether I love him still, whether I can love him still after all the brutal words and actions he has sent my way in the last twenty-four hours. But that is ridiculous. We were born for each other, and we shall die with each other.

Therefore, some day, some day when he earns it and knows better how to treat such a treasure, I shall tell him again that I love him. And then we shall have our third beginning. They say third time is the charm …


End file.
